


They're Coming to get you, Barbra

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Genre: Cannibalism, Comes Back Wrong, Gen, Psychological Trauma, Trick or Treat: Trick, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-25 21:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16205792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Barbra reached her limit in the farmhouse; after her brother, the killer, and the corpse upstairs, she checked out.  She was there, but was not there.





	They're Coming to get you, Barbra

**Author's Note:**

  * For [APgeeksout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/gifts).



She ran inside the house, panting; the care useless on the dirt road behind her.  A dozen thoughts were running through her head all at once.  She should’ve helped Johnny, done _something_ to separate him from the man who attacked her.  Was that man trying to bite her?  What about Johnny?  He’d hit his head rather bad, but she could’ve gotten help.

Instead she’d done nothing but run.

The house was dark, but she found the kitchen.  First drawer she found had the knives… if she needed to, she’d defend herself.  If the other man got to where she was, she’d defend herself.  She wandered the house; the living room was pretty big and surprisingly well-appointed for a farmhouse out here.

Her back stiffened at the room full of taxidermied animals.  The eyes, seeing those glassy eyes staring at her was startling.  There were several deer heads, and a… boar?  Trying to identify them did a little, very little to calm her nerves.  Because the scary thing wasn’t these dead animals, it was the madman she’d been fleeing

She jumped when she heard something crash outside.

Looking out the window, she saw _him_ , the madman from the cemetery, walk into a clothesline.  Silently, he tore down the line and ripped the post from the ground, throwing it aside.  She pulled the curtain over the window; she didn’t want him to see her, and she didn’t want to see him.  Whipping around, she saw a phone and rushed to it.  Setting her knife down, she picked it up.

And there was nothing on the other line, even after hitting the disconnector repeatedly.  She slammed the phone down after no answer, silently cursing it.  She rushed out of the room, spun, ran back to the table she laid her knife down on to grab it, and rushed back out.

She crept through the dining room to look out the window.  Johnny’s killer was there to.  Her blood froze when another man, staggering like him, burst from the woods, followed by another.  The original man half-turned jerkily towards the others, before turning back to the house.  Barbra backed away from the window, hitting a chair on her way out of the room.

Back in the front hall, she looked at the stairs.  Maybe there was something at the top?  A gun, a working phone, anything she could use.  She began creeping up the steps.  Midway, she’d reached the point where she could see the upper floor landing and found herself face-to-what was left of a face with what used to be an old woman.  She looked into those eyes, wide-open and with no lids to close anymore, and screamed her way back down the stairs.

* * *

They were arguing again, Ben and Harry.  Should they stay upstairs a car or go in the basement?  She wasn’t sure which was better.  She met ben first; screaming down the stairs she had to get out—the things outside be damned the thing upstairs was worse.  She’d run right into Ben, also fleeing from them.

The Coopers were here first, stumbling out of the basement. 

They were all together in this, and they were at each other’s throats.  Ben, Harry, and Tom were making plans, trying to figure out what to do.  Judy and Mrs. Cooper were helping.  Barbra just stayed out of the way.

She didn’t want to join the argument.  Johnny would have, probably.  He liked that sort of thing.  He could be such a jerk sometimes, but he always came through in the end.  She had to argue with him to get him to come to the cemetery, after all; she and ma.  But he relented; maybe it was family, maybe it was just the fact it gave him a chance to antagonize her.

He could be such a jerk.  But he always came through for her in the end. 

Johnny would probably go with Ben.  Hell, Johnny had the keys.  They didn’t have to worry about gassing a car up or anything, Johnny could drive them all.  She didn’t want to voice it unless asked though.  Ben and Harry were getting angry; Harry with everything, Ben with Harry.    Johnny was running late, wasn’t he?

Someone was knocking on the door.  The front door.  And the back door.  Part of her thought it might be Johnny; she’d tried to look for Johnny once, but Ben didn’t like her trying to open the door.  Her face still hurt.

* * *

They were all screaming.  They’d gone outside—like she had wanted to.  They were right in not letting her go out, judging by the screaming.  Something lit up the night outside the windows and Harry was trying to keep the door shut.

Then Ben got in and punched Harry.

She wasn’t sure where Judy or her boyfriend were anymore either.

They were arguing again.  Same as always.

Ben wanted to leave.

Harry wanted to stay. 

They asked about her car, and she smiled.

“Johnny has the keys.”

They were watching TV again.

Then it was dark.

They were knocking on the doors again.

And the windows.

Ben and Mrs. Cooper were holding the windows as hands reached in for them.  Harry was standing there.  Were they going to argue again?

That wouldn’t do much good.

Harry had the gun, Ben stopped holding the boards and they fought.  That wasn’t helping, that wasn’t helping at all.

 _She_ wasn’t helping either, she realized.

She hadn’t done anything but take up space since she got here; she hadn’t spoken up, voiced her opinion, helped defend the place.  She had done _nothing_.

Mrs. Cooper was screaming now; hands grasping her through gaps in the barricades.  Barbra dropped her hands from her head, heart racing.  She had done _nothing_.  But she couldn’t keep doing that; Mrs. Cooper would die if she didn’t do something.  Barbra would die too.

She grabbed a plank and ran to the barricade; hitting something solid but moving.  Several somthings.  The hands let go of Mrs. Cooper and reached for her as she yelled “no” over and over again.  The older woman rushed past her, to the basement, to safety, hopefully. 

She held the boards, Ben was next to her.  The crowd of ghouls shoved hard, and the boards separated from the places they’d been nailed in a half inch before she screamed and shoved them back into place.  Another wave of shoves, and the boards were pushed further.  Through the gaps, she locked eyes with the slack-jawed face of the first ghoul, the fun from the cemetery.  She screamed “no” again.

The boards came loose, and she stumbled off-balance.  Her gaze traced its way back up the doorframe, to a familiar leather driving glove.

Johnny was there.  She was screaming “no” over and over again, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate to make her move back.  His eyes locked on her and his hand reached for her collar.

She kept screaming as he wrapped in in a tight embrace; something was trying to tug her out of his grasp, but it didn’t succeed.

He pulled her back, and she screamed some more as more hands grasped her.  Despite all that, Johnny kept his grip on her.

Johnny always gave her a hard time.

He was her brother, after all.

He hugged her close and leaned in.

And she hugged him back.


End file.
